Now that 2016 is underway and the yearly planning has begun in the exciting luxury travel industry, it’s easy to spot the trends for this year. The travel industry is evolving in a new and exciting way. Where it used to be that travelers were focused on up and coming hotspots, now they are more interested in fulfilling their individual hopes and desires. It’s about the personal experience rather than the destination itself.
Travel today has to fill an essential need. In my experience, needs fall into one of the following categories: emotional, privacy/intimacy, last-chance, and more than anything else, experiential. The emotional need stems from wanting a bonding experience. Clients often come to me requesting a trip that will help them recreate a stronger bond with their children or someone special. Privacy comes from a romantic need to get back in touch with your significant other and shut out the rest of the world around you. These are the trips where we send clients to private bungalows in the middle of the ocean or a destination on the other side of the world. The ‘last chance’ trips refer to newly retired couples or a family with a child soon leaving for college or about to get married, who want to go somewhere together to create a lasting memory – a “once in a lifetime” type of vacation.
No matter how it starts, though, travel comes down to an experiential need. People want to plunge into new and more unique cultural practices rather than just fitting into the typical tourist mold. In order to cater to this I have to get to know my clients on a personal level that will allow me to create a full service experience far more in-depth than a straightforward flight and hotel booking. Clients come to me looking for full service planning that takes their individuality in to consideration with every decision. They want to be fully understood and catered to in every facet of their trip, a skill in attention to detail that I can’t do that without taking the time to get to know them intimately. Learning my clients’ likes and dislikes allows me to provide travelers with a taste of experiences they may not even realize they want.
People want different and authentic. They strive to understand a new culture and be given the ability to immerse themselves fully in to the destination they're visiting. Unique details and thoughtful recommendations are worth much more than your traditional booking. A personal relationship allows for a full 360-degree experience with add-ons such as personal shopping, private tours off the beaten path, local chefs and a real taste for the culture you're looking to understand on your trip.
Even more than adding an experience to a trip, people are booking trips around an experience. Clients are looking to see and do something that they never would have dreamed was possible to gain access to.
There are a handful of new hotspots that will get additional attention this year with ongoing changes in the industry.
One of the more popular requests I've gotten recently is for South African travel with a wide interest in safaris. With travel to South and Central America becoming safer and more intriguing, many more travelers are looking to expand to new destinations they wouldn't have thought of prior. It's not just about Europe and Eastern Asia anymore – traveler's want undiscovered lands to feel like they've experienced something different than their friends and colleagues. With the Olympics being in Brazil this summer it will also allow for American travelers to discover that country and even venture into Chile and Peru for an extended vacation.
